Signs Your Shopify Store Needs an Inventory Management System

Does your Shopify store need an Inventory Management System (IMS)? In this video, Geoff from A2X interviews with Jeff from SMB Consultants about the unmistakable signals that it’s time to upgrade to a connected inventory-management system.

00:00 Intro – Why inventory visibility matters
01:23 From iPads to cloud integrators – Jeff’s journey
06:23 Franken-Apps explained – when tech stacks go wrong
07:45 What “inventory management” really covers
10:04 Visibility gaps: cost of goods & valuation pain
15:31 Bottlenecks that stifle growth
18:09 The 4 key signs you need an IMS
22:59 Timing your implementation – seasons, EOFY & more
28:15 Pricing snapshot – subs & setup costs
30:20 Quick recap – who should upgrade
33:07 How to get expert help

Get in touch with SMB Consultants.

Get in touch with A2X.

The information in this video is general – please consult a professional for advice tailored to your specific business circumstances.

Summary

What an IMS Tracks vs. What Shopify Doesn’t

Shopify provides very basic inventory tracking functionality – but an inventory management system adds the financial and operational depth that Shopify can’t deliver on its own.

Additional benefits an IMS can provide include:

• True cost insight – landed cost, freight, duties, and margin per SKU or order.
• Inventory valuation at any moment – how much cash is tied up on the shelf, by location and date.
• Demand-based purchasing – reorder points, lead-time forecasts, and vendor performance metrics.
• Back-order, pre-order, and partial-allocation control – sell scarce stock without over-committing.
• Multi-location visibility – sync quantities across warehouses, 3PLs, pop-ups, and stores.
• Returns linked to accounting – one click to restock, refund, or write-off, with journals posted automatically.
• Channel-specific listings and pricing – publish variants, bundles, and kits to Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart, and wholesale portals in a single workflow.

5 Signs That Say “It’s Time”

If your business is experiencing any of these warning signs, it might mean that it’s time to upgrade to an IMS.

• Blurred visibility – you can’t answer “What’s my real gross margin or stock value today?”
• Stock-out or overselling risk – thin margins, supplier delays or custom builds make every unit count.
• Multi-channel sprawl – each new sales channel multiplies admin unless you have one source of truth.
• System bottlenecks – siloed finance, warehouse, and purchasing workflows drag you back into daily firefighting.
• High or growing returns – fashion, fitness, and related sectors often watch hard-earned margin slip away without automated reverse logistics.

Additional considerations:

• Annual revenue – once you pass US $1 million, cost visibility matters far more.
• Shopify tier – merchants moving to or already on Shopify Plus usually need deeper inventory control.
• Inventory confidence on a scale from 1 to 10 (self-rated) – if you’d score accuracy ≤ 5 / 10, it’s time.

The Investment

How much might an IMS subscription and implementation cost?

• Subscription – roughly US $350-900 per month for five users, but ultimately depends on the software you choose.
• Implementation – US $10k – 50k+, scaling with catalogue size, workflow complexity, and channel count.

Founders who work with an experienced integrator typically report higher system satisfaction than DIY roll-outs.

Best Timing for Implementation

How can your team find the time to take on such a big project? A few common windows include:

• Post-holiday lull – order volume dips, freeing staff for training.
• End-of-financial-year stocktake – you’re counting anyway, so data cleans up naturally.
• Any calm quarter – with a solid plan and dedicated resources, implementation can succeed year-round.

Every business is unique, so the ideal timing varies. An implementation team can help you pinpoint the right moment.

💬 Final Thoughts

Upgrading to an IMS isn’t just another software swap – it’s a strategic move that unlocks richer data, tighter processes, and headroom for scale.

When you can trust every margin number and fulfill every order without firefighting, growth stops feeling risky and starts feeling repeatable. If that sounds like the next chapter you want for your ecommerce business, it’s time to look for solutions that can help you get there.

Transcript

Geoffrey (00:01)
Hey everyone, I’m Geoff, the Head of Marketing at A2X, ecommerce accounting automation software for the world’s leading Shopify, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Walmart sellers, as well as their accounting partners. And speaking of partners, I’m joined today by Jeff, another Jeff, who is way smarter about the topic that we’re going to be – chatting about today, which is when Shopify merchants should consider implementing an inventory management solution.

Why is Jeff smarter, you ask? Well, many reasons, but specifically for this topic is because he’s the CEO of SMB Consultants, which is an Australian-based consulting firm specializing in delivering connected systems for inventory businesses, ensuring accurate data and efficient workflows that drive exceptional customer experiences. Beyond this video, if you’re looking for advice on when to implement an inventory management solution for your specific situation, Jeff is the perfect go-to person to ask. So we’ve included a link in the description below to get in touch with the SMB Consultants team and Jeff. Jeff, I just want to say thank you so much for joining us here today and sharing your expertise.

Jeffrey (01:12)
Yeah, thanks for having me. It’s great to be on here.

Geoffrey (01:14)
So Jeff, I think I did the – SMB Consultants team, or at least I hope I did you guys justice in your description, but what services did I miss?

Jeffrey (01:23)
Well, we’ve changed a lot over the years. Business started in 2008, which is when the iPad actually came out. I was managing an Apple retail store at the time, and we just saw the opportunity where cloud was just becoming available for consumers.

So that’s sort of what we were known for initially – being the cash-drawer killers and putting iPads into retail and hospitality businesses. But in 15 years of doing business, our business has evolved. So the next part of our journey was we became part of the Xero ecosystem, and we were the original cloud integrators. The actual term “cloud integrator” was coined after the services that we provided, which is effectively like being – one of the terms they used was Lego masters. We were the ones out there that were finding apps that could connect to one another because we saw the initial benefit of inventory-management systems like Vend at the time, which has now been purchased by Lightspeed, how they could connect to Xero and how they could help maximize efficiencies within a business. And then we saw how Shopify could connect to Vend and we became these Lego masters of building software stacks that could be purpose-built for specific industry types.

And then after COVID, we moved higher up the supply chain because what COVID did was it actually forced businesses to look at ways that they could sell their product using technology – opening up sales channels such as Amazon and eBay and being able to sell through Kohl’s or Woolie’s or – Etsy, Walmart, any of these – channels became viable markets and it really taught businesses how to sell online using technology. So our business evolved as well; we became experts at helping businesses connect their online-selling platforms so that they could see all their products and all their orders in one place. So they could make better data-driven decisions that will unlock growth. Because the problems that we saw post-COVID was that everybody rushed to open up all these sales channels and…

The down-flow effect was they had all these different sales channels, but they had no central point of truth. And they were trying to manage every sales channel they opened up. So that’s where we come in – basically helping businesses connect all of these sales channels so they have one central place to manage their orders, so they know their inventory, they know, and they can manage their inventory accurately. And then how do they connect to systems, whether it be 3PLs, third-party logistics, or being able to use shipping platforms to be able to ship those products effectively. And yeah, that’s basically how we’ve grown. And I think our point of difference in 15 years of doing this is moving away from just shipping systems where all we’re doing is migrating data. I think there’s too much focus on implementing new software and just migrating data, and there’s not enough emphasis on the change-management – helping businesses really understand how to use the new software and how to leverage the integration. So we really work closely with businesses to be a trusted advisor, to work alongside that business over a period of time so that we can unlock that growth as those solutions – add value to their business.

Geoffrey (05:04)
Yeah, that’s awesome. Jeff, fun fact, actually, I don’t think you knew this about me, but you had mentioned that you manage an Apple retail store. Like that’s where I cut my teeth. One of my first real jobs was in Apple retail – that’s so cool. Almost around the same time as well – so what a small world. Hey, Jeff, just a question for you on your journey, because we’re going to be talking about Shopify quite a bit here, and by extension, multi-channel sellers, right? But…

Jeffrey (05:17)
Right. I didn’t know that.

Geoffrey (05:33)
How many Shopify merchants do you think you all have worked with over – the course of your business?

Jeffrey (05:39)
Yeah, we’ve worked with – over 15 years, over a thousand businesses we’ve moved to the cloud, across various industries. So it’s been quite a journey and quite – yeah, looking back, doesn’t feel like 15 years, but we’ve really lived a full generation of tech. You know, we lived through that period of businesses moving from on-premise to cloud, and now businesses are well and truly in the cloud or a hybrid of the cloud, but I don’t think cloud is as…

Geoffrey (05:44)
Wow.

Jeffrey (06:09)
We’re not having that conversation anymore about where’s my data stored? Is it safe? You know, it’s more about how do I optimize what I have, where are the gaps? Some things are working, some things aren’t. We have a term for it – we call it “Franken-apps.” We have a lot of these businesses that are in this Franken-app stage because they’re busy working in the business and they’re adding products in reactively, trying to put out fires, and nothing’s really working well. It’s not cohesive, right? So…

Geoffrey (06:23)
Mmm.

Jeffrey (06:39)
Yeah, I think that’s been part of the journey for us – over the 15 years we’ve dealt with a lot of companies, but the value proposition in the service has changed as the technology has moved forward.

Geoffrey (06:53)
Well, the concept of Franken-apps is actually quite interesting, and I think a really good segue into the conversation that we’re going to be having today, which is about when you should start to consider looking into an inventory-management solution. You talked about kind of people experiencing pain and then, you know, bringing in solutions to try to solve pain, but you really need to do this kind of – thoughtfully and intentionally. Some businesses might think that they need an inventory-management solution, but they don’t, and some might have needed it years ago, right? So Jeff, I’m just going to start with my first question here: based on your experience, are there any definite rules or criteria for when a business should absolutely have an IMS in place? So let’s talk about things like revenue thresholds or business complexities or other…

Jeffrey (07:45)
Yeah, it’s actually – for us that work in the industry, sometimes we take for granted how – what inventory management is defined as, because for a retailer, it can be interpreted different ways. And let me expand on that. For a business that is running a Shopify ecommerce store, that is their holy grail, right? That’s their single source of revenue or their main source of revenue.

And so when they use Shopify on its own, they see that as the tool they use to sell their products, right? But by definition, our definition of inventory management – the things that it lacks is the ability to track, for example, margins or cost of goods sold or inventory valuation. Shopify on its own can do inventory tracking.

Geoffrey (08:32)
Hmm.

Jeffrey (08:40)
It can track the number of units sold and the number of units that you add to the system, but it has no way of tracking your costs. You can’t track your margins, and there’s no way to evaluate your stock. So usually if you talk to a business owner, let’s say a fashion designer and they’re just not – you know, have an accounting background, they won’t relate those two together. And that’s sometimes where there’s a little bit of a wrong assumption. They think, well, Shopify does inventory control. I know how many units I have.

Geoffrey (09:09)
…then

Jeffrey (09:10)
And when it gets to the actual finance controller or the CFO and they can’t see the margins or how much stock are we holding or how much – what’s the value of each stock that we’re sitting on because we want to fix our cash flow – those questions can’t be answered. So that’s definitely, you know, one of the telltale signs that a business needs an inventory-management system because it will add that extra level of reporting that Shopify on its own lacks.

Geoffrey (09:37)
Yeah, so it sounds like what you’re saying is it’s not necessarily about revenue or order volume, but more so about visibility. Like the second that you feel like you are starting to lack visibility on key financial metrics – cost of goods sold is one example, or inventory valuation – that might be a flag to say, hey, I might need a solution to this problem here. Am I understanding that correctly?

Jeffrey (10:04)
Yeah, but there are definitely different styles of businesses that would value that more. For example, if you had a business that was very high profit margin and had unlimited supply – so there weren’t any issues with stock constraints, and basically your replenishment is quite straightforward – you might not need an inventory-management system. So there are a lot of businesses that use Shopify Plus out there successfully and they don’t need it. But for a business that maybe has higher cost, lower margin, and they really need to make sure that they account for their costs correctly, or maybe they have scarcity, right? Maybe they don’t have the luxury of having unlimited supply and they deal with back orders, or they have a special-order workflow, or they do customization, or they do build to order – it’s those type of businesses that need to know how much stock they have on hand.

So oftentimes – like, I mean, if you think about COVID, we went through unprecedented times of scarcity, like who actually imagined that we would run out of toilet paper and people would be running to supermarkets trying to buy toilet paper, right? And it happened across the board, across all industries, right? And so what it taught businesses is that if I was successful in running my business previously by going into the warehouse and looking at what was on my shelves, and being able to just walk around with a clipboard and make decisions on what I could order based on what I see in front of me – you couldn’t do that anymore in a post-COVID world, right? So people needed better metrics, better analytics.

They started – it introduced the idea of pre-order, right? People wanted to be able to do pre-orders so that they could finalize the sale and be more cash-flow friendly. They didn’t want to lose the sale. At the same time, they didn’t want to over-commit.

Geoffrey (11:11)
Yeah.

Jeffrey (11:31)
They didn’t want to over-commit to the amount of supply that they would be allocated because that would create another down-flow effect. That’s another style of business that, if – technology, we had a lot of businesses, like for example, in the health and fitness industry – one of the industries that really boomed was fitness, like weights, you know…

Geoffrey (12:22)
Yeah, I remember I tried to buy 30-pound weights and it was like four months on backorder, which was insane. By the way, those weights haven’t been touched ever since, but yeah.

Jeffrey (12:28)
Exactly right, yeah. Those industries really wanted to be able to introduce pre-order because they knew that they had orders that were placed and it was just delays with shipping, so they wanted to be able to pre-sell that stock so they could bring the cash flow in and keep their stock turns positive and know that they could commit that. But they didn’t want to over-commit, and so there are a lot of businesses that struggled to do that with a Shopify-only system because there’s no way to track back orders.

Technology and products like Cin7 – we are Cin7 experts – allow us to introduce those types of workflows and give business owners the right tools to be able to manage those workflows where you’re not just selling what you have on hand; you’re wanting to sell pre-orders or back-order stock or do special orders. So that would be another area where I think would be a telltale sign or – an indicator of a business that would want an inventory-management system in addition to Shopify.

Geoffrey (13:33)
So we started off with lack of visibility as being one potential flag. I like the second one that you mentioned – people that are worried about potential stock-outs or overselling and needing to be across that. That’s where an inventory-management solution might be a good fit. Are there other factors or are there other considerations that you’d like to add?

Jeffrey (13:55)
Yeah, definitely. So as I said previously, post-COVID, a lot of the businesses that we started working with were the ones that were successful in pivoting and saw online selling as the pivot to evolving and growing their business. They realized that they didn’t need to be limited to opening up physical locations for growth, but they could actually expand through opening up multiple online channels using technology. So they could open up channels like Amazon and Etsy and all the ones I mentioned before.

So if they did that, obviously every channel that they opened up, if they didn’t have an integrated system that could consolidate all of those channels into one central point of truth, then every channel that they open up is a multiplier of administration work. So it often becomes a bottleneck. Maybe it’s a time and resource equation – if I open up another sales channel, I don’t have the resources to manage it. I need staff to be able to upload the products, to manage the listings, to be able to manage the orders, to manage the reverse logistics, the returns and the credits. So I don’t have the resources to do that, so therefore I’m not going to be able to – it becomes a bottleneck. So that’s, I think, another reason – if a business saw success in opening up multiple sales channels but they lack the central point of truth to see all the orders in one place or to be able to just centrally manage product…

Geoffrey (15:28)
Totally makes sense. You did – you mentioned one word that I’d like for you to elaborate on a little bit, which I have a sneaking suspicion is going to segue into your next flag, but you mentioned bottleneck, right? This idea around if the systems that you currently have in place are stifling growth and it turns into a bottleneck. Do you mind talking to me about that part of the equation?

Jeffrey (15:59)
Yeah. I mean, particularly right now it’s challenging times for most business owners and most business owners are wanting to make the right decisions but – to grow their business effectively. But when they feel like they’ve got a bottleneck or their growth is stifled because they don’t have the right systems…

Sometimes we see that operationally departments are not working well together – like the accounts team doesn’t work with the warehouse team or the sales team doesn’t work with purchasing. So there’s no teamwork happening there, and that could be a result of systems that don’t work well or maybe processes that haven’t been defined. So for us, that’s, I think, another area where an inventory-management system can – and the right consultant can help out. Because I think the key to growth is the right mindset of continuous growth and improvement, along with the right connected systems that are implemented well and have documented processes. You need to have both.

We do see a lot of businesses that have the right systems but they don’t have the right processes, and their team aren’t aligned and they haven’t gone through the processes of evaluating how to really engineer new processes that will leverage the benefits of the software stack. A lot of businesses – the business owner is getting pulled back into the business, right? Because they’re the central point of truth.

Geoffrey (17:27)
Yeah.

Jeffrey (17:30)
They’re the ones that know the business. There’s been staff turnover, people have moved on, the business owner is the only one that knows everything, and they feel flustered. They want to get that information out of their head and into systems so that they can hand off to people so that they can do what they want to do, which is grow the business. But they get stuck being pulled back into the business because their systems aren’t operating right and their staff aren’t using it correctly. So I think that’s another area where, yeah, we like to work in that – for our ideal client is helping them get from this area of chaos to a point of clarity.

Geoffrey (18:09)
Yeah, so just to summarize, it feels like if you are a Shopify merchant and you’re wondering when the right time to start to think about an inventory-management solution is – it sounds like if you’re struggling with visibility, worry on stock-outs and overselling, not having a centralized system to manage your inventory if you’re selling on multiple channels, and then kind of this idea around system bottlenecks?

Jeffrey (18:39)
Yeah, absolutely. I think that broadly speaking, that’s what we see across most businesses. The one question I usually ask Shopify owners is: if you were to rate how accurate your inventory is on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate it – ten being, I trust my inventory totals, and one being, I don’t trust them at all? That’s usually a telltale sign as well. If they come to me and they’re a little bit shy and embarrassed and they’re like, listen, it’s a two or a three, then they are worried about that, because in today’s – data is king, right? So business owners realize that if they can’t trust those numbers, it affects their ability to make better decisions.

So that’s kind of a real moment where they go, yeah, I can’t be running this business and not – there’s so many down-flow problems that stem from me not being able to trust my inventory accuracy. If I can get on top of that, then there are other things I can do. I can make better decisions on what to buy, when to buy, how much to buy. I can know which stock I need to get rid of. I can predict my cash flow better. You know, even with regards to A2X – I mean, that problem itself is such a, it’s a problem that exists in businesses that they don’t see as a problem. They don’t know what they don’t know, right? So reconciling payments is a massive problem in businesses that often goes – overlooked, and it’s one of those things that can drain resources and stifle growth, right? So we love A2X for that reason because it’s kind of low-hanging fruit for us. It’s really easy to identify that problem in a business because…

Geoffrey (20:23)
Yes.

Jeffrey (20:37)
Shopify merchants have been forced through consumer expectation to offer a plethora of payment options now. Seven, eight years ago, you used to see PayPal and enter your credit card in – those were the two payment methods. Now you’ve got Klarna, HUM, Zip, Afterpay – there’s so many that people are offering because technology provides choice to customers. So you want to open up your markets and provide a better customer experience by opening up the type of payments that you offer. But again, that creates a down-flow effect, right? Reconciling those payments. Now that’s probably a fifth one that we didn’t even mention. That’s why you use A2X, right? Shopify merchants – this is really important – Shopify merchants can use A2X with Xero on its own and it can help them reconcile their payments. But it should be noted that if Shopify merchants want to use an IMS, A2X – you need to use that as a plugin to reconcile payments because you now also need to account for the cost of goods, right? You need to be able to – because Shopify on its own doesn’t track cost of goods.

So if you’re using an IMS and you’ve got Shopify and you’re trying to reconcile online payments, there’s going to be additional work, and they just don’t know that there’s a better solution out there like A2X. Again, it’s low-hanging fruit. When we see that scenario, it’s just a no-brainer. We just say, you need to have this because this is going to save you time. The amount of time they’ll save versus the effort and the cost of using A2X is a no-brainer.

Geoffrey (22:09)
One hundred percent. And the beauty is A2X kind of works nicely in parallel with an inventory-management solution. My next question here is, OK, so let’s assume you’re hitting the trigger on at least a few of these kind – four trigger points – and you’ve decided I need an inventory-management solution. Do you mind talking to me about the sequencing in terms of how to think about when to implement an inventory-management solution? Ecommerce and Shopify specifically tend to be quite a seasonal business, right?

Jeffrey (22:59)
Yeah, I mean, there’s definitely seasonality, but then I think every business is unique. So one of the biggest problems businesses have – every business – is limited time and resources. So when they look to implement something like an IMS, which is a massive project, there’s a lot of unknowns, they don’t know what they’re getting into. That can often be the bottleneck, right? It’s fear of the unknown. And what is the right timing? Because it never seems to be the right time to do something so big. Somebody like ourselves can help a business fit in a project like this because of our expertise and our process and our knowledge of the timings and the conditions and the dependencies of what makes – how to time in a project with the current operations of their business. So it could be like end of financial year, for example; it could be after the Christmas holiday break when they need to do a stock-take and inventory levels are low. Those are some common ones, but we can literally implement at any time provided we plan the staff and resources, right? So that’s really what a business owner wants – when they come to us, they see that there’s a window of opportunity to do something like this, but they don’t know how. So it’s up to us to help them plan that for them and show them how we can fit this into their current workload.

I think the common mistake businesses make if they decide to do it on their own – yes, they may see it as a time savings, cost savings, but they don’t factor in the time of learning the software at the same time of learning how to implement. It’s two totally different things. You want to learn the software once it’s been implemented. You don’t want to learn how to implement it at the same time because you lack the experience, you lack the context over how the system should be set up to optimize it. And so often business owners end up – inheriting or adopting their old ways using the new system and they don’t leverage the benefits.

Geoffrey (25:03)
Yeah, one hundred percent. One funny thing is, like, we talk with thousands of ecommerce businesses, right? And if we were to survey and do, like, a net-promoter score for the businesses that implemented an inventory-management solution on their own versus the ones that did with an integrator or a partner, I would bet every single dollar I own that the net-promoter score for those that worked with an implementer or an integrator or a partner is by orders of magnitude greater than those that decided to implement an IMS on their own. And we just see this time and time again. In fact, another situation that we see quite a bit is people that have tried on their own, right? And they’ve kind of gone through those cycles and they spent that time and then they still seek out the support of an integrator or a partner or a…

Jeffrey (26:12)
Yeah, and the intention is right. And obviously, they rely heavily on the SaaS company’s tech support. And the tech-support company – like, the support desks are great. I mean, they’re great in the sense that they know the product from a technical point of view. But if you’re dealing with an arbitrary support agent each time, they don’t have much context over your business. So I think there’s a lot of support tickets that get channeled through ticketing – they’re really more consultative conversations. It’s more of a change-management piece. And I think in today’s world where businesses have implemented – there’s not a business today that would use less than 10 pieces of software.

Geoffrey (26:56)
At least not an inventory business, that’s for sure. Yeah.

Jeffrey (27:10)
You know, if you look at all the software products that people subscribe to on a SaaS platform, it’d easily be over 10. So anyway, like, they’ve probably implemented those and they’ve probably had varying experiences using them and implementing them. Some may be successful, some may not. But when implementing an inventory-management system where there are integrations, people don’t realize that it’s the sum of all those packages working well together and the way that the workflows are used throughout the business, right? So, you know, for example, with A2X, it’s a different workflow, right?

Geoffrey (27:27)
Yes.

Jeffrey (27:38)
The typical accounts person wouldn’t understand the A2X workflow because it’s not something that – it’s like introducing a new tool. So you have to learn how to use that tool to make it work well.

Geoffrey (27:50)
Yeah, or how to use it in parallel with another solution and make sure that the data is flowing – there isn’t a duplication of data, overloaded data. Like there’s a lot to consider. I totally agree.

I know this is an impossible question and it’s dependent on people’s specific circumstances, their order volume, their revenue, but you talk about inventory-management solutions as an expense. Can you give me, like, a rough range of what merchants could expect from a cost perspective when they decide to implement an inventory-management solution? Let’s not even talk about integrator-implementer fees unless you’d like to, but just the inventory-management solution – what are the cost expectations there?

Jeffrey (28:36)
I mean, typically we deal with businesses that range one to 50 million in revenue – that’s sort of an indicator; it’s not the only indicator. If a business is on Shopify Plus – because to go onto Shopify Plus, it’s quite a big jump, and a business would only go to Shopify Plus if it was warranted. So that’s another indicator. But again, there’s always exceptions to the rule.

In terms of costs, subscription costs for something like Cin7 would start at around 350 USD as a monthly fee for five users. So that’s a starting point. I’d say the median is like six to nine hundred dollars as a median point for the subscription fees, and implementation fees – I mean, again, it varies, but typically our fees will range from 10 000 to 12 000 dollars up to 50 000, 80 000 dollars. It depends on the size of the project. So it’s not for everyone, right?

And I guess in 15 years of doing this, we’ve grown to say no to certain people, right? Like we want to really be specific in who we’re going to be a right fit for and who we’re not going to be a right fit for – businesses that want a trusted advisor that’s going to grow with their business and get to know their business and work with them over a period of time to see their goals. That’s an ideal fit for us, right? But maybe somebody that is just looking for a quick, cost-effective migration of data – that’s probably not a good fit for us.

Geoffrey (30:18)
Yeah, totally. OK, well, that’s really helpful. Those are all the questions that I had. I think I’m going to add to my summary in terms of when to consider an inventory-management solution as a Shopify merchant, because you added a few characteristics that I think are important. One is you’re doing over one million in annual revenue, right? Two is you may either be using Shopify Plus or considering – Shopify Plus. You might feel like there’s a lack of visibility into the business, specifically as it relates to key financial metrics like cost of goods sold or inventory value. You might be worried about things like stock-outs or overselling – a lot of that kind of a downstream impact of lack of visibility. You’re scaling and starting to sell through multiple sales channels – so not just Shopify at this point, but multiple sales channels where you need a central system to be able to manage all of your…

And then last but not least, if you feel like the tooling that you’re currently using and your processes are turning into a bottleneck that are stifling your growth. So it sounds like those would be the trigger points, based on everything that you said, as it relates to when you should start to consider an inventory-management solution. Before we hop off, anything that you wanted to add there?

Jeffrey (31:46)
Yeah, no, that sums it up. I mean, another area is probably returns. I think that’s another bugbear for a lot of businesses. Not all businesses – it depends on the business – but there are some industries like fashion retail where, again, post-COVID, there was a high percentage of returns. People were doing their online shopping; they had to be more flexible in their returns process. But now that COVID has settled, they’re realizing that there’s a cost to doing that, and there’s an administration aspect; there’s being able to manage the stock so that it’s the reverse logistics part of it, as well as managing the credits and the returns. That can be a really big burden on a business that drives them to look for better systems.

Geoffrey (32:37)
So returns as a bonus trigger point for when to consider an inventory-management solution – totally makes sense. Hey, Jeff, I just want to say, like, I really appreciated this call. I really appreciated you sharing your expertise. Thank you so much for spending the time with us here today. As mentioned previously, if you feel like anything we’ve talked about today describes where you are currently in your business and you need support from an integrator like SMB Consultants, we’ve got the link in the description below. Please reach out to Jeff and team and they’ll be more than happy to help. Jeff, thanks again and we’ll see you next time.

Jeffrey (33:20)
Thanks, Geoff. Thanks for having me. It’s been a pleasure.